Marc’s words had been a shock to her, but they had made her think about how the children had reacted after she’d lost the plot earlier that day. Instead of being upset by her behavior, like a normal child would be, they’d quieted suddenly, reined their unruliness in, and hunkered down, as if they were preparing to handle whatever might come.
Perhaps they had learned these coping mechanisms through experience, to protect themselves when a situation became violent and spiraled out of control.
Where had the violence come from? Margot?
Margot had only been there a year, and in any case, Pierre was clearly the head of the household, and would dictate their treatment as he chose.
Cassie was convinced that Pierre was an abusive father.
She was certain this wasn’t the first time the three had been physically abused. They seemed to be familiar with it and, in fact, it was the only form of discipline they appeared to understand.
Cassie hugged herself, rocking back and forth on the chair as she thought about what the children must have endured, and what a toxic environment they were being raised in. She should have realized, from their consistent rebellion against discipline, what they were trying to tell her. But she’d been too slow on the uptake, she hadn’t understood, and had ended up blaming their antisocial behavior on her own lack of skill.
Cassie jumped as the phone started ringing loudly. She snatched it up, relieved that the call was coming through earlier than she’d expected, and anxious to know what awaited the children.
She realized she should probably have had a pen and paper handy, because she might need to write down notes. She opened the desk drawer and rummaged through it while she answered, doing her best to sound calm and professional.
“Hello. Cassie speaking.”
There was a short pause.
“Baby! I thought you weren’t allowed to answer the phone or take calls.”
Zane’s tone managed to combine hurt, accusation, and triumph.
“Zane?” Cassie was too flabbergasted to do more than stammer out his name, but that gave him all the encouragement he needed to continue.
“I thought you were just blowing me off. I mean, there’s no such thing as people not being allowed to take calls. That was a ridiculous excuse. I never believed it for a moment. But anyway, I wanted to tell you more about this job. They’re keen to interview you, even if it’s a Skype interview, so you can do it from where you are. If you can email your CV through they’ll have a look in the meantime. And of course you can stay at my place when you come back. I don’t hold any grudges after the way you treated me. I’ll be glad to help you get back on your feet again. So, you want me to set you up with this?”
Cassie was so angry she found herself climbing to her feet. The words she wanted to say didn’t feel right while she was sitting down.
She planted her feet on the tile floor and glowered at the opposite wall while she spoke.
“A few things,” she said, pleased by how level her voice sounded. Zane’s unacceptable behavior hadn’t pushed her over the edge or been the last straw that reduced her to tears. On the contrary, she felt strong enough to fight back, and angry enough to tell Zane, at last, exactly what she thought of him.
“Firstly, how dare you doubt what I said? What gives you the right to accuse me of lying? Because that’s exactly what you’ve done, and it isn’t the first time you’ve done it, either. Do you even realize? Do you have any idea what it makes a person feel like inside, to be unfairly accused of being a liar? But that’s how you conducted our entire relationship. You broke me down, time after time, with this kind of crappy emotional abuse. And I’m not taking it from you again. Because that’s what you are, Zane, you’re an abuser. Just like my father was. I went and chose him all over again when I met you.”
“Baby! I’m no such thing! I was joking when I said that. I didn’t mean it seriously. Please, you’ve misunderstood me completely and now you’ve got me on the back foot. I—”
Zane sounded outraged, but Cassie didn’t give him the chance to speak any further.
“Secondly, you don’t give a shit about me. I told you I’d get into trouble if you phoned. But you don’t care about that. You’re selfish, arrogant, and entitled. You do what you want and you don’t care what the implications are for others. When I realized that, it opened my eyes to who you really were. I dated you because I thought you cared for me. First you ended up emotionally abusing me, then physically abusing me. Finally, you just showed me you don’t care at all if I get into trouble with my employer and, in fact, you’ll take action to make sure I do, because it suits your warped agenda to get me back so you can control me again. What kind of assholery is this? I had to put up with it for some of the worst months of my life, and the only thing I’m thankful for is that it showed me who you really were, and I managed to get away from you.”
She was shouting now, screaming the words at the wall in anger, gripping the phone with all her
“Baby! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. It was urgent because the applications close tomorrow, and I wanted you to have a chance.”
Zane sounded panicked now, but yet again, Cassie overrode his protests.
“Thirdly, Zane, I’m the one who has to forgive you. I left because you hit me, and the only reason I didn’t tell you earlier what a disgusting, cowardly act that was, is that you made me too scared of you. Do you like that? Is it fun for you to be in a relationship where the other person is trying to manage your awful, unacceptable, violent, antisocial behavior all the time? Does it make you feel big and good to know how much of an abuser you are? Are you looking forward to making your next girlfriend as ‘happy’ as you made me? I’m sure you are and all I can say is whoever she is, I pity her.”
Cassie lowered her voice with an effort. Even though the children were in the furthest bedroom, they might still hear if she carried on shrieking out her rage.
“I took photos of that bruise and I still have those photos on my phone. I’ll be delighted to go to the police if and when I’m back in the States, and lay a charge of harassment and physical abuse. Have you ever been arrested, Zane? The police don’t like abusers who hit women. I believe they give them a hard time.”
“Baby, please.” Zane gabbled out the words. “I don’t want to contradict you, I’m willing to accept what you say, but it’s not true about that bruise. Please hear me out, I remember better than you, because you’d had too much to drink. I’ve told you this before and I promise you, my version won’t change because it’s the truth. We fought, but I didn’t hit you. I tried to pull you out of the path of a car. The bruises were from that. You would have been knocked over for sure. Yes, I’m full of shit, I gave you a hard time, I wasn’t the perfect boyfriend. All that I’m willing to admit, but I wouldn’t hit you. Genuine. You created that in your own mind.”
Doubt flickered inside Cassie, but she reminded herself to be strong. She wasn’t going to fall for his gaslighting, or believe the alternative reality he was trying to create. Not this time.
“I know what happened. I was there. You don’t forget or misremember when somebody hits you. So don’t ever call me again, not ever in your life, or I’ll come back to the States just to lay that charge.”
“Please, believe what I say, baby. Please don’t…”
Zane’s voice was taut with tension.
Cassie didn’t bother wasting her time listening. She stabbed the disconnect button as hard as she could and put the phone down.
She was still trembling with rage, but she felt utterly triumphant that, at last, she’d spoken her mind to Zane—in full, and without fear.
Why had it taken her so long? Cassie berated herself for not having had the courage to do this earlier. After all, needing to escape from Zane was the reason she’d ended up here. She could have avoided so much stress if she’d managed to stand up to him before leaving.
As the phone rang again, Cassie realized with a jolt that she couldn’t have
done it earlier, because the experiences she’d gone through here in France had given her the strength she needed to confront Zane.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Cassie sat down again and let out a deep breath to calm the last of her rage before picking up the ringing phone. She guessed there was a small chance it was Zane calling back, but after the way he’d sounded by the end of their conversation, she doubted it.
The voice on the line was unfamiliar. The woman sounded pleasant, if rather stressed.
“Hello, is that the au pair?” she said.
“Yes, I’m Cassie, and I’ve been looking after the children.”
“I am so glad you are there. My name is Josephine, and I am the sister of Diane, Pierre’s late wife.”
“It’s great to speak to you,” Cassie said, relieved that she wasn’t speaking to a direct relative of Pierre’s. After his recent arrest, his family was bound to be furious.
“I told the police I’d like to call you myself. I am shocked by this news and I’m sure you must be, too. I am coming to Paris immediately so that I can be with the children. I am traveling all the way from Bordeaux, but I’m on the way to the station now, and there is a train leaving in twenty minutes which I will hopefully be in time for, so you can expect me by about nine p.m.”
“That’s great,” Cassie said. “Do you want me to tell the children? Should they wait up?”
“They must be exhausted. That choice is up to them, but please let them know that Aunt Josephine is on her way, and that I have missed them.”
“I will do that,” Cassie said.
She put the phone down, glad that a family member would be arriving that night, and encouraged that Josephine had called personally, rather than having the police phoning on her behalf.
Thinking about what Josephine had said, Cassie realized she obviously hadn’t been to Margot’s funeral. Her words had implied she hadn’t seen the children for a while.
Cassie headed back down the passage to tell the children the news.
They were all huddled together in Antoinette’s bed, and she was reading them a story. Ella was sucking her thumb and Marc looked to be almost asleep.
“Your aunt Josephine is arriving later,” she said. “She asked me to tell you that she’s missed you.”
She’d wondered how the children would react, but hadn’t been prepared for Antoinette’s scream of joy.
“Hooray! Aunt Josephine! We love her so much. Marc, wake up. Aunt Josephine is coming tonight, to look after us.”
Jumping out of bed, Antoinette ran over to Cassie and hugged her tightly.
“Thank you for telling us this.”
“She’s our favorite aunt!” Marc shouted, jumping up and down on the bed. A beaming Ella joined in.
Antoinette made a face at him.
“She’s our only aunt, silly. But she likes to joke with us that she’s our favorite aunt. She’s so nice to us. Cassie, she’s really kind and loving. We sometimes go on holidays to her house, it is so beautiful. She has a farm really close to the sea.”
“There are animals on the farm,” Marc said in between bounces. “She has sheep and cows and horses.”
“And ponies. I rode a pony the last time I was there,” Ella added.
“Do you think our cousins will be coming too?” Marc asked. “I like them a lot. Their names are Tomas and Nicolas, and Nicolas is the same age as me.”
“I don’t know, but it sounded as if she was traveling on her own,” Cassie said.
“When will she be here?” Antoinette asked anxiously.
“She said by nine.”
“We will wait up,” Antoinette decided.
“I will come and call you as soon as she arrives,” Cassie promised.
“Thank you so much, Cassie.”
Antoinette hugged her again, squeezing her arms tightly around her, and to Cassie’s surprise both Ella and Marc joined in, hugging her and thanking her.
She hugged them back, sniffing hard, amazed by how emotional this display of gratitude had made her.
“I love you all so much,” she told the children. “I’m happy that your favorite aunt will be here soon. You deserve to be with someone who will be really kind to you.”
Cassie couldn’t believe how the atmosphere in the room had changed after she’d broken this news. The children were happy and positive now, as excited and expectant as if the summer holidays lay ahead.
Cassie wondered if Aunt Josephine reminded them of their mother, and this was partly why they were looking forward to being in her care—at least for now, because she had no idea what would happen in the longer term.
She headed downstairs to clear up the supper dishes, tidy the dining room, and find some snacks for the children. She made a mental note to put her passport away for safekeeping, and to pick up the photo which Marc had thrown to the floor. The glass had cracked but it hadn’t shattered. If it wasn’t too badly damaged, hopefully she could salvage it.
When Cassie reached the hallway, she saw the photo was back in its place. The crack in the glass had been pressed together so it was almost invisible. The envelope with her passport inside had been placed neatly on the corner of the table. She put it in her pocket and zipped it closed, wondering who was working tonight. She’d assumed she was the only one here apart from the children, and checked the front door was locked, just in case.
Going through to the dining room, she found the dishes had all been cleared away. Someone had definitely been helping her out. Curious to see if whoever had done this might still be tidying up, she headed to the kitchen.
When she walked in, she saw Marnie was sweeping the kitchen floor.
Marnie jumped so hard when she saw Cassie that she dropped the broom and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
“Hey,” Cassie said, surprised. “I thought you had the afternoon off, but thank you so much for helping.”
Then she looked more closely at Marnie. She was sheet-white.
“Are you OK?” Cassie asked.
“Pierre has gone? Tell me he has gone, Cassie.”
“He’s been arrested,” Cassie said. “The police arrived at about half past five. Why? Did you know about it?”
She felt as if her brain was starting to catch up with the reason for Marnie’s odd behavior.
“I knew about it,” Marnie confirmed. She spoke in a low voice, and Cassie found herself doing the same.
“Was that why you took the afternoon off? I assumed you were at a job interview. Was I wrong?”
Marnie nodded.
“I was at the police station.”
“Why?”
Cassie looked again at her tense, frightened face.
“I think you should sit down and tell me what happened. Can I make you some tea?”
Cassie put the kettle on, and took cups and teabags from the cupboard where she’d seen them in her earlier search for dinner ingredients. There was a bottle of milk in the fridge so she took that out, thinking as she did that the detail-oriented Marnie would have poured it into a smaller jug and put everything on a tray.
Marnie sat down at the kitchen table. She lowered her head and let out a deep breath, looking down at her hands.
“I was so frightened that they would not arrest him, and he would find out where I had been, and I would be in more trouble than anyone could imagine. I know that could still happen, because yes, I was the reason Pierre was arrested today.”
Cassie stared at her, taking a few moments to process what she was saying. Shock and relief chased each other around her mind.
“What did you do?” she asked.
She poured the tea and sat down next to Marnie.
“I was emptying the dustbin this morning. That one, over there.”
Marnie pointed to the large bin where the compostable waste was thrown away.
“It was by pure chance that I saw it, because it was right at the bottom of the bag and covered in dirt. It was a cell phone. A simple, older type of phone, not a fan
cy smartphone. I had never seen it before.”
“That’s weird,” Cassie agreed, wondering how the cell phone had incriminated Pierre.
“It was just after the funeral. I thought maybe a guest had dropped it, or else one of the children had gotten up to their tricks and thrown it away as a joke.”
Cassie nodded, thinking these were good guesses.
“I decided to try and find out who it belonged to, because someone was surely missing it. So I wiped it off and turned it on. There was still a little battery life remaining. I checked the recent call list and the contacts. There were no contacts. This phone had only made a few calls, and they were all to the same number. So I took the phone and drove down the road to the far side of the vineyard, where you can get a cell phone signal on fine days. There, I called the number.”
“What happened then?”
“A woman answered almost immediately,” Marnie said, cradling her cup in her hands.
Cassie stared at her, not daring to breathe, waiting for what Marnie was going to say.
“The woman said, ‘Pierre, is everything all right? I thought you had thrown this phone away.’”
Cassie stared at Marnie, aghast, and for a while she had no words.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Cassie felt stunned by the turn events had taken. The incriminating content of the mystery woman’s words put everything in a completely different perspective. The fact that Pierre had been calling her on a secret phone, disposed of soon after Margot’s death, was a bombshell.
“What did you do when you heard her speak?” she asked Marnie.
Cassie put a hand on the table, reassured by the solid feeling of the wood, which grounded her when everything else seemed dizzyingly uncertain.
“I disconnected the call. I knew instantly that if Pierre discovered I’d found the phone, I would be in serious trouble. I was tempted to throw it straight back in the trash and pretend I’d never found it. Then I thought to myself—do I want to do what is easy, or do I want to do what is right?”
“And you chose what was right?”
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